Worlds 2017: Group A Autopsy

Despite its primacy in the English alphabet, Group A finished its play last. Don't ask me why, something to do with scheduling I'd assume. SK Telecom T1 took the top seed as predicted, but it took one final match between SKT and Edward Gaming to determine the runner-up.

EDG may have been the second-strongest team in Group A, but their inability to adapt during Week 1 ultimately sank their quarterfinal hopes. Two soul-crushing throws against SKT didn’t help either. ahq e-Sports Club fought valiantly, taking unexpected wins off SKT and EDG, but the LMS side couldn’t find consistency in the mid lane to win when it counted.

Instead, it was Cloud9 who escaped from Group A with SKT, relying on a strong Week 1 showing and a workmanlike victory over AHQ in Week 2 to advance. While it was SKT’s win over EDG that officially saw them through, it was poetic that C9’s critical win came over AHQ, the team that eliminated them from Worlds 2015 in a Group B tiebreaker. Cloud9 are the only North American team to reach the bracket stage for the second year in a row, and the only NA team to escape groups since 2014.

How did NA’s third seed qualify from a group stacked with China’s top seed, the two-time defending champions, and what turned out to be the best squad from the LMS? Read on!

Edward Gaming Cannot Outrun Week 1

Good news for Chinese fans: Edward Gaming finally arrived at Worlds 2017! Problem was, they were one week too late.

All the crowd support in Wuhan—particularly for hometown hero Clearlove7—couldn’t buoy EDG to the next round. In some ways, their road was harder than the miracle trail Fnatic blazed in Group B. Unlike the Europeans, EDG were forced to win all three Week 2 games once AHQ upset SKT to start the day; two wins wouldn’t be enough to force a tiebreaker.

They almost pulled it off. EDG began by disposing of Cloud9 in much the same way Team WE buried Team SoloMid the day before. Watch out bot lane: Caitlyn’s back, and she’s going to take your turret and make late game team compositions cry. iBoy shouldered the burden of an iMan against C9, responsible for virtually all of EDG’s damage in a draft that featured Maokai, Jarvan IV and Galio as the frontline. Spoiled for initiation choice, EDG ran Cloud9 ragged across the map, engaging however they wanted and controlling every objective. C9 had a sniff of a comeback when they got to iBoy in a late 5v5 around their own top inhibitor, but the quick reactions from Meiko quickly closed the window. iBoy finished 8-1-9 and nearly 100CS over Sneaky.

After a 25-minute dismembering of AHQ that saw iBoy record a handful of multi-kills, EDG faced the final boss: SK Telecom T1. A win here would force a tiebreaker with Cloud9 for second that, with recent form taken into account, C9 had no chance of winning. After 11 minutes, that seemed to be where Group A was headed. Triggered by a ridiculously fast 6:20 First Turret take by iBoy bot, EDG demolished all of SKT’s outer turrets within minutes and had amassed a nearly 4k gold lead. All EDG needed to do was wave control until Baron spawned, then use their massive lead to take the objective, break the base, and end the game.

That didn’t happen. SKT successfully slowed EDG’s breakneck pace while bleeding turrets, staying within touching distance until EDG took the first Baron. A successful push bot by EDG broke the inhibitor, but it all went sideways once EDG forced a mid lane push as five. Like a repeating nightmare you can’t escape, EDG took a fight they shouldn’t have (Baron was nearly spawned and super minions were pushing into the SKT base) and got wiped off the Rift. iBoy, stunned and perhaps hoping to salvage something from this catastrophe, tried to solo-kill Faker after his tanks had died. It didn’t work.

SKT completed their Ace, took Baron, and won minutes later after Faker smote iBoy with a Shockwave-Command: Attack combo. EDG were done, and a heartbroken partisan crowd barely made a sound to salute the victorious Koreans when they made their customary post-game bow.

Had this version of EDG—the one with coordination and controlled aggression—showed up sooner, they would easily have qualified for quarterfinals. But the bullheadedness of Scout (seen briefly again versus SKT) and a lack of late game macro execution ultimately killed their chances back in Week 1. Cause of Death: Self-Immolation.

Cloud9 Save North America

By this point, Cloud9 had watched each of their fellow North American competitors succumb in the group stage, unable to earn the paltry number of wins needed to advance.

Immortals failed to win a game when one victory would have sent them through. Team SoloMid crashed out of Group D once they failed to defeat a winless Flash Wolves, then lost a tiebreaker to a team they’d already beaten. Only Cloud9, NA’s third seed and lone play-in participant, were left to save their region from ignominy.

Luckily for NA fans (and some analysts with ongoing hair-related bets), Cloud9 did enough on Sunday to qualify for quarters. Their dominating, payback win over AHQ and SKT’s comeback victory over EDG pulled them across the finish line on a day they looked third-best in Group A.

The win over AHQ illustrated the major reason Cloud9—not IMT or TSM—will continue competing. In a word: adaptation. The siege composition Cloud9 employed was similar in spirit the ones Team WE and EDG ran, the latter of which C9 had just seen up close. It was a major shift in style. Contractz—who had made his living on aggressive Warrior junglers like Rek’Sai, Ezreal, and Graves—was placed back on a traditional Cinderhulk tank. Jensen was given LeBlanc, a better turret bully than Ryze or Syndra (ditto for Impact’s Gnar). The composition worked wonders, catching AHQ completely off guard.

Cloud9 recognized that a continuation of their aggressive counter-jungling wasn’t yielding the rewards they wanted, and adapted accordingly. Instead of blindly surging forward with a weak strategy, they planned something new and fortunately had the players to execute it. Even in their two Week 2 losses, you couldn’t pick out one member that was unusually poor, losing as a team rather than because of a weak link. C9 gave away too much engage against EDG in the draft and couldn’t overcome it on the Rift. Against SKT, they couldn’t get the early lead needed for their composition to both win fights and keep Huni’s split pushing at bay.

I expect to see more siege style comps from C9 soon. It suits their uptempo pace of play despite the requirement of a tank jungler, allowing them to be aggressive without sacrificing the beef. Good luck Cloud9, NA’s hopes ride with you. Cause of Death: None, spared by God.

SK Telecom T1 Split Push to a Top Seed

Is it just me, or do the defending champs seem weak this year? Well, weaker, relatively speaking. Finishing 5-1 as Group A’s top seed isn’t something to belittle.

This is still God’s team, after all. Faker and kkOma continue to steer the SK Telecom T1 battleship through stormy seas, but Group A was an unusually choppy ride. SKT needed two comeback victories to overcome Edward Gaming, and lost to a bullying AHQ group that did not fear them. It was the first time SKT had lost a Week 2 match at Worlds.

But what about SKT seems off? Two items stick out. First, SKT suffer from the same early game passivity that has plagued Samsung Galaxy, and, to a far greater extent, Team SoloMid. SKT’s First Turret Percentage is 33.3—higher than only TSM and 1907 Fenerbahçe—and their -787 GD@15 puts them squarely in the bottom half of all 16 group teams.

The pair of games against EDG were glaring examples of passivity's cost. SKT twice dug themselves an early hole, down 4.7k and 3.3k at the 15-minute mark respectively. Yes, they eventually battled back by winning exactly the right fight, but in both cases EDG shouldn’t have given SKT the opportunity.

SKT want to transition into a 4-1 late game with Huni split pushing, much like how Samsung want CuVee on Trundle or Camille to spread the enemy thin. They slow-play the early game, allowing their top laner to get items. Once that’s accomplished, SKT and SSG will push for objectives as four while Huni/CuVee pressure a sidelane, forcing the enemy to choose between contesting the objective equally or potentially losing an inhibitor.

The second Cloud9 game was Exhibit A: Huni became an irresistible lethality split pusher who Impact couldn’t stop alone despite C9’s best aggressive early game efforts. C9’s commitment to stop the Elder take late in that game was exactly what SKT wanted. Once Impact teleported into the drake pit, Huni simply rode the pushing minions to the nexus and ended the match by himself. On the flip side, you can get games like SKT vs. AHQ, where Mountain didn't allow Huni any comfort in lane and rendered him useless as time ticked on.

SKT have rarely looked steady absorbing pressure in the early game, and their junglers have been a big reason why. This brings me to the second item I’ve noticed with SKT: Neither of their junglers have played well. Blank was just as ineffective in the early game as Peanut, an incredible statement considering they’re two of the best junglers in the world. Against AHQ, Peanut got bullied around the map by Mountain so badly kkOma subbed in Blank for the rest of groups. With 0% FB participation, there’s a clear sense the junglers aren't creating plays in the early game, merely reacting to pressure or preventing a lane from badly losing.

The tank meta is partly to blame. Peanut’s dynamic Lee Sin that did so much work at MSI has had little presence since the start of Summer Split. He struggled so significantly to adapt to the tank meta that Blank often saw more time in LCK play. SKT haven’t really found an answer in the jungle, but maintain such a high level of teamplay that their mistakes can be mitigated.

But all this being said, SKT aren’t a best-of-one team. They cemented their legend in the best-of-fives, where kkOma’s strengths as a strategist are most clearly displayed. We’re there now, but so is Longzhu, and the weaknesses SKT have shown so far won’t go unpunished against them. I suppose it’s healthy for the ecosystem that the same team doesn’t win Worlds year after year. Where’s the fun in that? Cause of Death: Gods don’t die.

AHQ: The Best of LMS

The LMS underperformed at Worlds this year, full stop. Hong Kong Attitude didn’t make it to groups, even with many analysts quietly predicting that they were the strongest of the region’s participants. Flash Wolves went 1-5 at the main event, their solitary win a bittersweet triumph over Team SoloMid after they’d already been eliminated.

You know who didn’t disappoint at Worlds 2017? ahq e-Sports Club. The LMS #2 seed finished 2-4 with wins over Edward Gaming and SK Telecom T1, feathers in the cap of a team no one expected much out of. The later victory was a joy to watch, as SKT finally paid the price for their passive early game by the unlikeliest of squads.

It started in the draft, where Westdoor challenged Faker by picking his own trademark Fizz blind. Faker called for Kassadin in response, a rematch of the Worlds 2015 quarterfinal elimination game. God got the better of The Door then, not so in 2017. It was Westdoor who got First Blood credit on Faker, mostly thanks to Mountain’s excellent Sejuani. Mountain was everywhere in the early going, invading Peanut with impunity and landing an excellent stun on Faker (layered with Westdoor’s Chum the Waters) for the assist.

While Faker got the better of Westdoor in the 1v1 battle, his team lost the war. Once AHQ took Baron off their early pressure, they broke bot inhibitor, allowing for a decisive late game 5v5 win around Elder to end the game with the wave already prepped and pushing.

But AHQ couldn’t consistently replicate this success, and part of the reason why was the switching of mid laners. Chawy might be the more mechanically-gifted mid, but he failed to show up during the first SKT game and got absolutely bodied by Jensen during the loss to Cloud9. The benching of Westdoor immediately after he beat Faker felt dissonant. Why not let one of them build a rhythm? AHQ had solid pieces but only occasionally put the puzzle together, and in a group this close that wasn’t nearly good enough.

I’m glad the LMS exists. It evens the playing field across Southeast Asia, allowing for smaller regions like Vietnam (within the GPL) to flourish without being suffocated by Flash Wolves and AHQ. We might not have been gifted Gigabyte Marines' performances without the LMS. But Flash Wolves and AHQ are the old guard, with rosters that have been playing together for years. They seem out of ideas. If the best days of the big dogs are behind them, when can we expect something new and exciting from the LMS? Cause of Death: Lethal schizophrenia.